Prison Bars
by violets92
Summary: Post Janus List. Megan has a chat with Colby. Oneshot. ColbyMegan LarryMegan. Rating for language.


Hey everyone. This is my first Numb3rs fic. I've been tempted to write one for ages, but I wasn't sure how to go about it until The Janus List. Just to let you know, I've never actually seen the episode, but I know a lot of what's going on, so forgive me if I get a miniscule detail wrong. Hope you like.

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She has no idea why she's here. Don begged her not to do this and even she knows that she should leave things well enough alone, but somehow, she still finds herself in a hard, uncomfortable chair sitting at a cold and metal table waiting for Colby Granger to appear. Maybe this is a way of dealing with what he'd done, dealing with the betrayal. She knows David and Don will most likely be drinking away the pain in some shabby bar, and Charlie will most likely be trying to solve some crazy math problem down in his basement. Maybe she just needs closure.

"Megan?" She looks up at her former team-mate. His hands are cuffed and she is sure she can hear shackles around his ankles. He doesn't seem like Colby. Colby wouldn't have gotten arrested for espionage. Hell, the Colby she knew would have _beaten up_ the guy arrested for espionage. Whatever happened to duty and honour?

"Granger." She can see the flash of pain in his eyes at the cold use of his last name. She would have felt sympathy for the old Colby. Not this one.

"I, ah…I wasn't expecting a visit."

She doesn't reply.

"Oh come on Megan." She flinches at the sound of her name coming from his lips as if it were a joke shared between them on a normal day at the office. "Did you really make me get all shackled up just so you could sit here and not talk to me?" He smirked. That _freaking_ smirk.

"Maybe. Not that it matters whether I talk or not. You're still going to be a bastard." She watches as Colby's eyes widen slightly in shock. If it weren't for the fact that she is a profiler, she wouldn't have noticed it.

"Wow. _Somebody's _been bottling their anger up. You need to relax…get a massage-"

"Oh cut the crap Granger! We're not in the office. We're in a federal prison! You're in an orange jumpsuit for God's sake-"

"You think I haven't noticed that?" His eyes turn stony and he leans forward. Out of the corner of her eye, Megan can see a guard taking a slight step toward their table.

"I'm locked up Megan! Do you have any idea what that's like, to go from fighting in Afghanistan and being able to move in open space, to a federal prison where I barely have room to take two steps?" Megan laughs harshly, unable to stop herself.

"Are you asking for _pity_ Granger?" He tries to cut her off, but she continues.

"After all this crap…after betraying us, after letting us believe that you really were a soldier upholding his country's honour, after all the complete and utter bullshit that you fed us, do you actually expect me to pity you?"

"It wasn't bullshit."

"Oh like hell it wasn't! You lied to us. We trusted you. You had everything. And what did you do? You threw it all away so that you could get paid a couple of extra bucks over in China."

"It wasn't like that…"

"Then tell me what it was like. Why the hell would you do something so completely stupid?"

"I can't tell you that Megan." She can feel her face heating up. She knows that the last time she got this angry was way back when she was sixteen and fighting with her father.

"You selfish bastard." It was almost a whisper, but Megan knows that he could hear her.

"Megan-"

"You selfish _bastard_. I can't-" She takes a breath, trying to calm herself. "After all that you did, all you put us through, you can still sit there and lie to me? You can't even summon an ounce of decency and tell me the truth?"

"I'm not lying. I really can't tell you Megan. I don't know. I don't _know _why I did it. It was stupid, yeah. But I can never tell you why. I can't even tell myself why."

His voice holds a tone of finality and no matter how much she wants to yell and scream at him, she still knows that she's never get an answer. He looks down slightly and leans back, almost having the grace to look ashamed.

"How is everyone? How's David?" Megan scoffs and folds her arms.

"As if you really care." She looks up into his face and suddenly sees that it's ablaze with anger and regret. Immediately she knows she's struck a nerve and she wills herself not to feel the guilt that is starting to eat away at her.

"Don't you _ever_ say that again. Ever. I may be behind bars, but that doesn't mean I suddenly forget what I had with you guys."

"Could've fooled me." He leans forward and grabs her hand, which somehow, has ended up on the table. His grip is stronger than she last remembers it.

"You don't get it do you? Just because I made one too many stupid mistakes, it doesn't mean I didn't care. You guys were like family to me-" She snatches her hand away and glares at him. It's not a petty glare that she used to give him every day. It's a cold, hard, angry stare.

"Family members don't generally turn against each other."

"Oh yeah? What about your dad and you?" Her anger flares and she resists the urge to pick his hand up from the table and smash his wrist. She takes a couple of seconds to try and normalise her breathing. When she speaks, it's in an icy whisper.

"I don't know how you found out about that, but if I were you, I wouldn't mention it again. I'm not beyond beating you up."

"Oh I know that." He smirks, but Megan can still feel her blood boil, so he drops it.

"You still seeing Larry?"

"A lot of things may have changed since this afternoon, but my relationship is not one of them." She resists the urge to rub it in further. David's always told her that Granger has never really accepted Larry and her as a couple.

"Well that's good for you. How is he?" She notices the trace of jealousy in his eyes and the anger that's been bubbling throughout the meeting finally boils over as she stands up.

"Larry is a lot more of a man than you will ever be." And with that, she turns and walks out, barely noticing the buzzing that the gates make on her way out before she reaches her car and breaks down.

She desperately wishes that the world was a perfect place. But she knows it's not, because if it were, she would have never had that conversation with Colby Granger. Maybe she'd be calling him the better man, and maybe, just maybe, she'd be imagining her future with him in it instead. Out in the open, as far away from prison bars as they could get.

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A/N: Reviews are brilliant. 


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